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The educational and labor market outcomes of the first, first-and-a-half (1.5), second, and third generations of immigrants to the United States (US) and Canada are compared. These countries’ immigration policies have diverged on important dimensions since the 1960s, resulting in large differences in immigrant source country distributions and a much larger emphasis on skill requirements in Canada, making for interesting comparisons. Of particular note is the educational attainment of US immigrants which is currently lower than that in Canada and is expected to influence future second generations causing an existing education gap to grow. This will likely in turn influence earnings where, controlling only for age, the current US second generation has earnings comparable to those of the third generation, whereas the Canadian second generation has higher earnings. Importantly, the role of, and returns to, observable characteristics are significantly different between the US and Canada. Observable characteristics explain little of the difference in earnings outcomes across generations in the US but have remarkable explanatory power in Canada. Controlling for a wide array of characteristics, especially education, has little effect on the US second generation's earnings premium, but causes the Canadian premium to become negative relative to the Canadian third generation. The Canadian 1.5 and second generations’ educational advantage is of benefit in the labor market, but does not receive the same rate of return as it does for the third generation causing a very sizable gap between the current good observed outcomes, and the even better outcomes that would be expected if the 1.5 and second generation received the same rate of return to their characteristics as the third generation. Why the US differs likely follows from a combination of its lower immigration rate, its different selection mechanism, and its settlement policies and practices.

Segmented assimilation theory predicts that contemporary non-white groups follow three patterns of assimilation: mainstream, downward, or delayed. Yet, the homogenous treatment and primacy of ethnicity resigns all group members to a similar fate. Whereas few studies of ethnic incorporation consider both the classed and gendered nature of the labor market, this study investigates the extent to which intersectional group differences within the highly stratified American economy shape segmented assimilation trajectories.

This study introduces an intersectional approach to segmented assimilation theory. Using the 2000 census, this study examines how within group differences in skill and gender condition the hourly earnings, joblessness and self-employment participation outcomes of five ethnic minority groups from the first to the second generation, compared against US-born, non-Hispanic whites.

Findings generally support the mainstream assimilation hypothesis for all groups; a downward assimilation trajectory among Chinese men only; and a delayed assimilation trajectory for low-skilled Filipinas and high-skilled Cuban men and women. This study reveals that intra-group differences in skill and gender shape divergent segmented assimilation trajectories among members of the same ethnic group.

This study challenges the emphasis on and primacy of ethnicity in predicting segmented assimilation in favor of an intersectional approach that considers how multiple, interdependent, and intersecting dimensions of identity and not only ethnicity shape the process of economic incorporation among ethnic groups.

This paper presents a three-generation migrant analysis, comparing the relative economic performance of various migrant generations to the native population. We develop a theoretical model to explain the relationship between the different earnings of the migrants over three generations and relate the model to the results in the literature. The empirical analysis explores the suitability of the theoretical implications based on data from the 1995 Israeli Census. We show that assimilation of the third generation into the local population is far from clear.

This research aims to analyze, from the perspective of family life trajectories, the intergenerational changes in the reproductive strategies of Costa Rican households. The four strategies explored are fertility and marriage, educational, economic, social and symbolic. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction strategies is the frame of reference to study these strategies. Also, the second demographic transition (SDT) is used to contextualize intergenerational changes. The family life trajectories of three generations in different geographic locations and socioeconomic contexts were reconstructed through interviews. A generational triad was chosen for the interviews; the generational triad refers to three generations of the same consanguineous family. One interview was conducted per generation in each triad, 3 per triad, and 15 in total. Generationally, changes in the types and forms of households are identified; they are dynamic households that change their composition as part of the kinship and family support networks undertaken. The first generation with a single marriage, secondary economic role, not least, but within the priority household. Second generations of one or more unions, in the cases of second unions, unlike the first ones, are unions with shared responsibilities. And the third generation with an independent life, living in an apartment with roommates, or who at their parents’ age still live in the dwelling with them, at ages when they already had families and independent life. Finally, this work seeks to discuss whether the dynamics of household transformations are influenced by the socioeconomic context of each household and each generation.

The notion of “boundary” is central in both consumer acculturation research and migrants’ daily experience within and beyond the market. Yet, scholars have rarely questioned this concept and thus made it a taken for granted that conceals more than it reveals. Our study aims at moving from the etic notion of boundary we use as consumer acculturation scholars to an emic notion of boundaries, here grounded on an ethnographic inquiry of Moroccan mothers and daughters in France. This chapter shows that (1) the notion of boundary is much more articulated than expected, since migrants may use up to five different typologies of boundaries (national, ethnic, religious, biographical, and generational) in order to organize their experience; (2) first and second generations tend to attribute different meanings to these boundaries; and (3) boundaries represent problematic conceptual references in migrants’ life, which ask for specific coping strategies (crossing the borders, melting the borders, and pushing the borders). Overall, this chapter provides a more sensitive, blurred, and critical representation of boundaries, which – we hope – will stimulate sounder acculturation research. With reference to the limitations of our work, while we identify the variety and interpretive heterogeneity of boundaries migrants use to frame their experience, we limitedly address how such boundaries are performed.

Purpose – With political tensions surrounding migrants in post-9/11 Western societies, scholarship on second-generation immigrants has surged. This study explores the narratives of second-generation Iranian-Dutch women, a previously unstudied group, in relation to their positionality regarding identity and belonging.

Methodology/Approach – By combining focus group discussions with in-depth individual interviews, we explored the narratives of 13 second-generation Iranian-Dutch women. Our focus was on their senses of belonging, cultural identities and lived experiences as they navigated between Dutch society and their parents’ complicated heritage, against the backdrop of the post-9/11 world.

Findings – Although these women are perfectly ‘integrated’, they are still frequently approached and labelled as ‘foreigners’ in society, which negatively impacts their sense of belonging in Dutch society. However, our participants navigated contradicting parental and societal expectations, finding new ways to belong and fashioning cultural identities in multiplicity.

Originality/Value of the Paper – To our knowledge, the specific experiences of second-generation Iranian-Dutch migrants have received no scholarly attention. Our findings further the understanding on relevant second-generation themes such as the immigrant bargain, solidarity between different ethnic minority groups, and new ways of belonging.

This chapter investigates whether and to what extent immigrants in Germany are integrated into German society by utilizing a variety of qualitative information and subjective data collected in the 1999 wave of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). To this end, leisure-time activities and attitudes of native Germans, ethnic Germans and foreign immigrants of different generations are compared. The empirical results suggest that conditional on observable characteristics the activities and attitudes of foreign immigrants from both generations differ much more from those of native Germans than the activities/attitudes of ethnic Germans. Furthermore, the attitudes of second-generation immigrants tend to be characterized by a larger degree of fatalism, pessimism and self-doubt than those of all other groups, although their activities and participation in societal life resemble more those of native Germans than those of their parents generation.

Drawing from theories of modernization and socioemotional selectivity, this study investigates the effect of familial support on the relationship between immigrant generation and mental health service use for Asian American and Latinx older adults.

Using the data from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) 2002–2003, nested logistic regressions (N = 810) were used to test the effects of familial support (parent–child relationship quality) on the relationship between immigrant generation and the use of mental health services. Differences in familial support between older adults and their younger counterparts were also accounted for.

The results indicate that familial support partially attenuates the relationship between immigrant generation and mental health service use, but only for Latinx groups. Familial support was not significantly different for older adults than that of those younger in age.

Findings suggest the need for a better understanding of familial support as it relates to mental health service use for these groups. Approaches to improving the access to, and the overall use of, mental health services should be sensitive to ethnic variation. Immigrant groups may also endure stressors associated with legal and citizenship status. Future research should consider the effect of these political identities on mental health. Studies on parent–child relationship quality should also be longitudinal in order to better understand the dynamic nature of familial support across the life course.

This chapter addresses gaps in the literature as Asian Americans are relatively understudied group with regard to mental health. Previous studies showed that US-born Asian American and Latinx populations are more likely to use mental health services than their foreign-born counterparts, but the effects of generation status and familial support for older adults are unclear.

This study is designed to explore the process of integration and ethnic identity among South Asian immigrants in Norway. In this study I examine the extent to which different factors such as, time since migration, receptiveness of the host society, position in the labor market, schools, social networks, and interaction with the host society, contribute to immigrants’ integration and the construction of their identity in a multicultural society like Norway. Based on ethnographic methods including unstructured interviews of first-generation South Asian immigrants and their children in Norway, three different levels of integration are explained. The first level involves high ethnic identity and low integration and relates to first-generation immigrants who have accepted that a permanent return to their home country is impossible. The second level of integration is related to high ethnic identity and high integration. The individuals in this category are second-generation immigrants who are integrated into Norwegian society, while maintaining a high ethnic identity by strong allegiance to their parental norms and values. The third level is low integration and low ethnic identity and explained in terms of identity crisis, which sometimes causes an internal turmoil and disorientation for many immigrants.

We analyse the labour market position of the second-generation minority ethnic groups in Britain and the United States in 1990 and 2000 on the basis of micro-data from the two most recent censuses of the population. We find that they were making progress, although some groups were still facing considerable disadvantages. The second-generation men were doing better in the United States than in Britain at both time points but the gaps were being narrowed. The second-generation women in Britain lagged behind their American counterparts in the first period, but they were doing equally well in the two countries in 2001. The overall pattern is one of small but notable progress and shows somewhat greater support for the revised straight-line theory than for the segmented assimilation theory.